


in interlude

by Larrant



Series: count down [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:37:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8827087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: a love story in the wrong universe(but maybe it would have turned out the same way anyway)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eekanimp](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=eekanimp).



> Not quite my one year anniversary of being in this fandom, but close enough. I'll post something else on the 17th, haha.

 

 

 

 

* * *

**10.**

* * *

 

This is not how it starts.

 _It_ is a party, the ceilings high above transparent glass, revealing the dark sky with all its stars in the night. The wine flows freely, the chandeliers glittering with light, and words sink into the buzz of the atmosphere- there is a decadence here, a sickly decadence, and it sticks to the walls, sticks to the wine in slim glasses, slides down your throat like sticky caramel. A thinly veiled attempt at diplomacy, something useless, something necessary.

There’s a glance from across a crowded room, chance making brown eyes suddenly hit gray- a connection formed in exasperation at the entire proceedings. Only curiousity, of course, held without a thought in mind. There’s a strange kinship from that, seeing an entire stranger who was going through the same as you. And then a moment after, a voice interrupting, a sentence to continue, and their gaze is broken.

In but a moment, they will not remember. But that is their first meeting, if it can be called such a thing- when they are both not yet what they will become known as.

And then, many years later- this is not how it starts either. A wholly different setting, no yellowed lights or brightness or champagne in thin glasses.

A place set with the snap of four hundred salutes in a cold, expansive hangar. Perfectly in unison, perfectly practiced. The silence that falls after it is oppressive, lying thick in the air.

There is alusteel gleaming, armour polished and white, black and white and splashed, every so often, with red. Everything is an angle, sharp cut and cold. The silence is suffocating.

Behind rows of faceless helmets, blank eyes stare ahead. Every so often, the gaze of one will break, invisible, glance at a wall, a decoration- at one of the figures ahead- before the unease of being found out returns it to riveting attention.

Here is what you might first assume, to do with silence: it should not be heavy, should not feel suffocating, not in the way that feels choking. It should not but it does (they all know it, and so do you). It lies thick in the air like a slow constrictor, a collar tightening, pressing down on the hollows on your throat and then down on the flesh- not enough to make you gasp, not enough to bruise, just enough so that it _must_ be felt, for the tension here is so palpable.

Boots then, on alusteel, thudding with unnatural force in the stillness, breaking it, carrying to every ear and every corner.

Loud, that is what must be thought too. _Too loud_. Resounding. Uneven. A predator's walk. Against the silence, the sound. And then- and then the footsteps halt. It's easy to know exactly where and when they stop, for after that there is nothing else, nothing but the hollow rasp of breath against a mask, your mask, the uniform ranks to your sides and in front and behind.

Through the filter of a helmet, the air tastes like something metal, something coppery. It tastes like something stale and left too long, like water that's been forgotten on a counter overnight.

The world must look different one of them thinks, when there is not a helmet and a screen in front of your eyes. The thought ends there, for fear that even _it_ might be heard- a break on the white canvas.

The world does look different, but the difference is only superficial. From the eyes of a Lieutenant, red haired and blue-eyed, the world looks perhaps the same as it does from anywhere else amongst the nameless crowd- except only without the flashing green and a status reading on the left hand side. He too, after all, can do nothing but stare forward.

The silence to him too, is suffocating. But it is a kind of suffocation one gets used to- the balance of oxygen in the air remains level, the life support systems cleanly keeping 21 percent. Perfectly calculated. But the lungs always feel like they need more. He does not notice it often, except in situations like this.

When the black cloaked figure stalks forwards, passes him without a glance, his breath catches almost imperceptibly in his throat, the apprehension and curiousity and awe- all of it suddenly converging as his gaze flickers to the back of the man’s heavy cape.

Is that power, he wonders, to make four hundred pairs of eyes stare at you at once, riveted to attention. To command such authority and attention.

His gaze flickers back in front of him, and there is a sliver of cool ambition that has snaked another root in him- _soon_ , the Lieutenant thinks, and the cold washes over him like a metal lullaby.

Soon is a matter of years, but when it comes, the sense of it is as pleasing as he thought it would be, as fulfilling as he had dreamt.

“Congratulations on your promotion, General,” Kylo Ren’s voice is metallic, inhuman from behind the mask.

The General reflects on that title- on how different this was from the first time he had seen Ren, unable to do anything but stand at attention, utterly captivated by the sense of power Ren had controlled. Things are certainly different now. The greatcoat is hardly days old, the three stripes on the sleeve hard earned and hard won, white against the gray of its garment.

He gazes at the Knight, and maybe inevitably the awe- the fear- all of it is still inside him, just bottled down and labelled as inconsequential before being folded away- he would like to think himself this man's equal, but there is still instinct in him, instinct that cannot be easily controlled. After all, this man exudes a presence from him that would make anyone lesser quake and cower. Hux likes to think he succeeds in not showing any of that though, for he stands tall, his back stiff and the pads that broaden his shoulders giving him more strength than he could have thought possible.

They stand there, opposite and opposing each other for the barest of moments, one tall and hulking, black swathing his frame, the other ramrod straight and back stiff. They gauge each other- or at least, so it feels, in the clinical white light, the shadows cast on their frames, the darkness catching under the hollows of eyes and in the crevices of masks. Perhaps that is when the first judgement is offered and passed, in the span of a moment. Hux has already dreamed of this moment for what seems like an aeon.

He smiles, a faint, thin smile, “I hope we will work well together, Lord Ren.”

In that moment, his voice is aloof, superficial in its respect, nothing of the calculation in it, nothing of the dismissal. It is entirely truthful, entire devoid of meaning.

But something still shifts in that moment, however simple or unimportant. The first spark flickers into existence, wavers, uncertain whether to stay or to go out. And as their gazes break between the heavy air and the black steel of a mask, it steadies into a slow flame. Perhaps that is where it starts, even though in the future, Hux will never be quite sure.

 

 

* * *

**9.**

* * *

  

Here is your introduction to this universe, as necessary or unnecessary as it is. After all, even if it should play no part- there is a poeticness to it, to how this story unfolds.

For everyone- almost everyone- is born with words inscribed onto their skin. This is the principle, the rule. There are words scribed to your skin, and they are the first words that will ever be said to you by the one you’ll be destined for. It is how it has always been, it is how it will always be.

Sometimes it is a greeting. Sometimes it is a single word, and your destiny might pay you little more than a passing glance before disappearing, utterly ignorant of your identity- but fate is rarely to be so cruel. They might be your partner, the one most important to you, your lover or your brother. This is the rule.

(but as always with rules, exceptions exist)

A memory, not one that matters, but a memory all the same.

The man in the uniform, the soldier standing over the slumped body. Words on his lips, cold and vengeful- there is death on his hands, the imprint of blood on them that will never leave, revenge that is to be taken. Orange and white, white and black. The red stains on the white, drips to the ground, slow and steady. The beetle-shell armour is dyed in crimson.

But the man speaks, and the stormtrooper flinches. A whole, full-body flinch, as though someone had electrocuted him, stabbed a stake into his limbs. The soldier does not see, the soldier does not understand.

There is something on the fallen Imperial’s lips, something like blood- and something not blood. His eyes find the soldier’s. He pleads. He cannot speak. The soldier does not understand.

(something in the man’s eyes is unsettling, something there is terrifying)

He does not hesitate. He raises his blaster, he shoots again.

(he puts the man out of his misery)

There’s a voice in his ear as he does, metallic. It bursts with static before cutting off. The soldier turns, holds his rifle with both hands, leaves.

That night, there is an image of those eyes in his mind. Brown. Flecked with hazel. The look in them. The intensity. The desperation. A different desperation, to anything else he thought he had seen before So stormtroopers were human after all.

He does not sleep that night.

He forgets, eventually.

The feeling will haunt him for a long time.

(the answer: when he was born, there was no mark on him, there was no mark and his parents mourned)

(sometimes, sometimes- sometimes there are exceptions, and perhaps the exceptions matter more than the rule)

(perhaps this is not so cruel- perhaps there will never be words returned both ways, perhaps there will be and your lips will open, a shattered breath might leave you, a broken, whispered word- and you will only ever have the memory of seeing their eyes snap wide into something alive, to see their frantic hands to press at a wound that has already bled out too far, before even that goes away)

But for the rule, here is the morale: you'll know who you're meant for, from the very first moment of meeting them.

If it were a world where such things did not exist, it might sound like a fairytale, that your names were written somewhere in the stars together, verification to the existence of a God. A living proof there on your body that your life will be made complete by someone.

(there are those who find love without it anyway. a second-class sort of love, nothing as the love of legends, dismissed without thought, but perhaps to some it might be called love anyway)

Armitage Hux is not one of those people. He is born with a messy scribble written onto his skin, tracing across his collarbone, his neck. Aurebesh, basic. If you had to stereotype, you'd call it a scientist's scrawl, quite possibly feminine. A worried sort of apology, an exclamation perhaps made by someone running into him by accident.

He hadn't quite used to imagine them, not really. Perhaps once or twice, when he was young and he wondered how they might meet, and he thought his words were a rather plain sort of thing, quite every day and common.

It had meant something to him when he had been a child, when he had read stories of legends and love and fate, the only escape from the dark reality around him- he had dreamt of them, sometimes, and his dreaming had been daydreams in his science classes, looking at the pair of girls in front of him who always sat together and had their hands linked, wondering what it would have been like to meet his soulmate that early.

It had meant all the more when he was nine, when his father had told him he would enter the Academy- it had meant something like the only way out of everything. There, when he had been alone, when his father had left, when the person who cared at all about him was a droid, it had meant a promise that said- 'my existence is on your body, I will not leave you'.

(but even then, he already doubts. his father’s wife is a cold, cold woman, and when she looks at him she looks at him with disgust in his eyes. he has always known, perhaps instinctively without being told, that she hates both him and his father)

(his father, with words on his palm that belonged to someone Armitage had never met, a person who had left him behind as soon as he had been born)

His mark had still meant something to him when he had been fifteen, less so at that time, but still a promise he subconsciously looked for in the first words anyone spoke to him, searching desperately for approval and with a heart so empty it ached.

It had stopped meaning anything to him a long time ago.

(Ben Solo is born with Aurebesh on his forearm, a bracelet of words that will forever shape his life. He grows up, believing in the fate of whatever will let the two of them meet. But the man he becomes has already forgotten the existence of fate.)

The two of them meet, and destiny will never view them as anything important. One of them has a fate so great it will span decades in its tale, enough that the galaxy shall be shaken and the reverberations felt for centuries- and for the other, well, they have no place in that story.

But destiny is something neither of them accept, and this story is about them.

 

 

* * *

**8.**

* * *

 

Here is how their relationship sours: respect turns to civility. Civility turns to conflict.

It is not yet defined, the slow, cautious dynamic between them, and it will never _be_ defined, not properly- perhaps it is that that will cause the friction between them, the uncertainty of their positions in relation to each other. Were they equals- was one superior, was one meant to be subordinate- in the absence of knowledge, it cannot be helped then that they are both predators, that the need for dominance runs so deep in their blood that it leads them to chafe against the other.

It sounds, at least, poetic, but largely it takes the form of the Knight of Ren looking down on Hux as wholly below his station, and the General dismissing Ren unless he needs him for something important. They both feel it, as if they are being looked down on, not worth the other’s time.

The conflict turns to chafing anger- a kindled rivalry that sparks from their clashing wills- even if on the surface there is nothing there but cold, clipped sentences, Hux’s respect for Ren spread thin enough it might even be transparent, not-there at the edges.

Ren always seems to be defying his orders in some way- even the ones Snoke gives directly. Hux seems to be constantly fighting the need to explain to Ren that Snoke’s orders are not up to interpretation.

Maybe it’s that, and maybe it’s the fact that every single mission Ren gets sent on he comes back successful- usually with the least number of casualties possible. It makes Hux’s teeth grind together for the irritation of it.

And yet somehow, despite all that, the line between loathing and lust starts blurring.

It starts, mostly, with Hux being frustrated enough by Ren that he starts coming up with imaginary scenarios that involve degrading or humiliating him. It's almost necessary, when there's no way to one-up the man in real life.

The thought of rough public sex crops up maybe once, and then it just… sticks. It doesn’t help when the thought starts cropping up even when he’s in front of the man himself.

Perhaps it’s to do with the urge to establish his dominance over the other man, Hux thinks, putting logic into the madness, and still it is distasteful for him to think about. But he can’t deny that fact- that one of his more favoured imaginations when it comes to Ren is to fuck him in a corridor and leave him there afterwards as a mess.

He wonders if Ren can read his thoughts and read that particular cloud of imagery from them- he does not care if Ren does- to be honest part of the reason it’s there is so that Ren is left in no doubt as to his opinion of the man.

Ultimately, or perhaps even obviously when he looks back on it, that particular train of thought ends up turned against him. Months of irritation and friction- all of it culminates in a hand in his hair that forces him against the wall, a thigh shoved up between his legs- and when that time comes Hux can't even help it, it's too _hot_ and he whines, the sound rough in his throat, needy. Even as he needs he hates himself for how he feels his gut clench low, how he rides up shamelessly against the hard muscle of Kylo's leg.

It’s a haze of heat and suffocation and the jarring edges of the walls around them- he takes everything he's given and lets long gloved fingers twist off the clasps on his jacket. He’s dreamt of all this and more, and the reality of it is so much more visceral than he had imagined it to be- he can regret later, that’s what the heady pleasure of the moment tells him.

His fingers tighten a fist in the man's clothing, drags him closer, until he can drown in the heat and lose himself in the dizziness, the heaviness of the air.

The aftermath is... noticeably less favourable to Hux. It’s Kylo stepping away, robes still pristine, breathing even and helmet covering his face. And Hux stares at him, before glancing away- the opposite image if there ever was one. Hair tousled and a bruise pressed onto his throat, jacket undone and outfit rumpled- he’s unsteady, slumped against the wall now that his weight is no longer supported by Ren- and in a glance, it is possible to tell who is in control.

He supposes he loses that one, when Ren leaves him there to fix himself in that empty, darkened corridor. It makes him angry- but it’s an anger that lacks any surprise, lacks any harshness- maybe he’s always realized he can’t defeat Ren, that at the end of the day the man is still stronger than him, and Hux might have an army at his command, but Kylo has the force, and that won’t ever leave him.

(Hux wonders if he could afford to invest in a neural disruptor)

When they find themselves alone again, in a similarly dark corridor, he should not be surprised that the scenario repeats.

(it doesn’t go any differently, except for the

But he realizes there is a problem when the incident repeats. Once. Twice. Five times. When they've both apparently decided their best choice for a bedmate is their sworn rival, and they start taking it to the bedroom instead of in the corners of abandoned and dark corridors.

But by then, he is too caught in their game- too caught in Ren’s inexorable sway- to turn away.

 

 

* * *

**7.**

* * *

 

Months, and nothing changes. They kiss and it is still a harsh thing. They take and they do not give anything back, nothing except what is torn away by force- except perhaps now there is a different emotion to their actions, a barrier between them that was once unnoticed now starting to show its edges, its limitations.

"Take off that helmet," Hux commands, desperate and low and _wanting_ and he doesn't care any more he needs to _see_ Kylo's face- and for the record he’s goddamn done with getting fucked by a guy in a goddamned armadillo helmet, even if it's a better fuck than he’s had for the longest time.

Still, the fact that he’d asked, _demanded_ it, doesn’t mitigate the surprise when the (not-)Sith follows his order without question or complaint, and he almost blinks- does blink- disorientated when he notices the man reaching out long fingers and releasing something on his helmet with a click and a hiss.

But the surprise is simply momentary, and he only manages a glimpse of dark eyes and pale skin before a warm mouth has descended messily on his, and he closes his eyes and forgets the need to look properly. This must be the first time they’ve kissed, and the possessiveness makes Hux moan aloud (he’ll regret that later, when he remembers to)- the sound is swallowed by teeth knocking against his, a tongue pushed into his mouth.

He whimpers when the kiss is broken, when Kylo’s lips find his neck, his collarbone, suck on his skin and bite down- soft, too soft, it doesn’t break the skin and he wishes it would- and there is something there that might be more than hunger, perhaps the need to leave his mark on the other, perhaps more-

At that point, Hux does not care.

(he looks at him properly afterwards, sees the black hair, the angled features, the boyishness that had never been suggested before from the faceless mask and the machine’s voice-- Ren looks young, younger than Hux, and certainly younger than Hux _expected,_  but- hell, as long as he makes a good fuck)

_(he looks so young, there is cold in his eyes and calluses on his palms and everything about him is a tragedy)_

And just like that, months pass.

Nothing changes, but maybe everything changes.

Hux sees it the nth time they fuck (he's lost count now- more than a dozen, less than fifty). The fourth time they fuck in Kylo's quarters and the first time the man actually takes off his damned clothes to fuck him. He doesn't notice them in the heat and the harshness and the lips at his throat, biting down and drawing blood- it's not until afterwards, when he slumps on the sheets and cranes his gaze to Kylo, that his gaze falls onto the line of Aurebesh.

He is, for a moment unwilling to move, to get dressed and to return to the cold corridors of the Finalizer, to return to his quarters and finish his work. But when he looks at Kylo, to see, gauge whether or not the man is going to let him, he sees it.

The words trace from Ren's shoulder, looping to his forearm in what is barely more than chicken-scratch. _Where am I?_  He reads, follows the nearly illegible writing without thinking. _Where are the others?_

They aren’t quite your average words, but who could know. They seem better than his, in any case- more appropriate for somebody like them.

He thinks they might even be elegant letters, if they didn't look so... childlike. They've been scribbled there by some wobbling, uncertain hand, the lines not quite straight and whoever wrote it, the nib of their pen must have been bent. It _looks_ bent, at least.

He wonders, in a sudden fit of possession and bitterness, who they are.

He reminds himself a moment later that he does not care.

Still. "Are you waiting for them?" He asks, lazily tilting his head and gazing at the not-Sith. He does not know if he is curious or not, but he has asked the question anyway. It is strange still, and yet wholly not strange at all, to think of Ren as a human, behind the mask that seemed to hide all of his humanity. But now the man is not wearing his mask, and it seems almost impossible to see him again as nothing but a mindless machine.

Kylo shrugs, eyes moving to his and the corner of his lip curving up into a wan smile. It's not something he does often, even if the expression is hardly genuine. It looks more like a grimace than a smile, really. Maybe it’s as genuine as he can make it. He wonders what Kylo’s smile looks like- if he even knows how to smile. That’s as far as his thought goes, before he stops it, unwilling to know more or wonder more.

"Are you waiting for yours?" Kylo asks, rhetorically.

He mirrors the other's shrug in response, and for a reason not even he fully understands, he reaches out cold fingers to brush against the words lining Kylo's skin, wanting to touch them, to trace his fingers across the soft letters- before his touch can reach his hand is caught in a grip tight as iron. He raises an eyebrow, questioning. Unimpressed. Though he makes a mental note not to try and cross that particular boundary again.

There's a beat of silence, something unreadable in Kylo's gaze, before his smile turns patently smooth, wanting, and then there's no word of warning between the motion and the sudden loss of equilibrium when he's pushed down and his head falls with a thump onto the not-so-soft regulation bed.

"Again?" He asks in disbelief when he regains his questionable sense of balance, looking up to find his view of the ceiling obscured by Kylo's face, and then his words turn into a stifled hiss of indignation when Ren bears down on him.

It’s funny, really, the thin line that defines their relationship is overstepped and crossed so much- trampled so much that soon enough it almost no longer exists and the proof of it is only in name, in words they do not speak to each other for the feeling, the nameless fear that this dangerous fantasy might become real, and reality will force this apart.

 

 

* * *

**6.**

* * *

 

The cracks start appearing.

Maybe it starts with this- with a darkness that rises sometimes and swallows him whole and a night where he thinks it might bleed through.

Maybe it starts with his fingers dragging in Ren’s clothing, maybe it starts with an emptiness that can’t be filled, maybe it starts with _not enough not enough I want to hurt I want to break I want you to break me_ and he tells Ren, a command that might be a plea that might be helplessness hidden in frustration, “Hurt me.”

And maybe- maybe Ren doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t press down harder, doesn’t hurt him like he wants to be hurt- maybe Hux’s hurt will be borne through soft lips and soft murmurs and hands that hold him down with a gentle firmness, and even his snarls and swears will be broken down into a shuddering a trembling, and the gentleness is so gentle that feels like he might shatter and maybe- maybe Hux does.

Maybe when he’s broken, when there is wetness on his lips on his eyes on his skin and everything about him is shattered, Ren will hold him close and hold him with his warmth, and the warmth will be a gentle cruelty that he clings onto, that he falls asleep to, that takes all the shattered pieces of himself and draws them back together.

And then maybe it continues like this: that when he wakes, he does not realize it for several long minutes. There is a warmth that has pulled him close, a scent he breathes that soothes, is familiar and soft. He hovers there in the space between consciousness and sleep, knowing nothing but the warmth, the contentment of the moment.

How long has it since he has slept so well. He does not know, he does not want to think except to keep his eyes closed and stay like this.

It's only when there's a muffled groan that he hears that he blinks, eyes opening not to the light but instead peering at the black fabric that his head seems to be delved into. He blinks again, and his eyelashes catch on the material. _What_...?

Realization comes when he wrenches his head out of Ren’s robes.

What.

He looks down, and sees there’s an arm slung over his waist.

There seems to be the fact the rest of his body seems to be pressed against Kylo. There’s a spot of darker black against the already dark black where his face was buried in Kylo’s chest (does dark black exist? it does for Ren), and as he surveys it, the distasteful realization arrives that it might just be drool. _His_ drool.

Disgusting, his mind supplies, both unhelpful and snide.

(that’s not really what he’s thinking, not really what he’s thinking at all, but if he thought about anything else he doesn’t think he would be able to accept it- there’s a rising panic, a panic that threatens on the border of his subconscious and he crushes it down and replaces it with useless thoughts that might distract instead)

He glances at the air conditioner remote on the dresser, and realizes that it’s set on low- so that’s why it’s so cold, now that he’s no longer attached by the skin to Ren. And no wonder Ren had haphazardly stolen all the sheets- and then thrown them away because he didn’t even need them with Hux there to act as a human-sized heat pack.

The sarcasm comes on thickly- it’s a conscious effort perhaps, but it succeeds, enough that he starts looking at Kylo’s sleeping face and thinking about an old aubergine.

He thinks he should get up and leave, before Ren can wake up.

Unfortunately Ren has just woken up, from the half-awake groan. Or has he been awake from the start, a nagging suspicion asks.

“Good morning,” he offers coldly- as coldly as he can manage, shivering from the sudden cold washing over his bare skin. The man blinks blearily, looking at Hux. Hux stares, hoping that Kylo will notice soon that his arm is still slung over Hux’s body and he might let him at any point.

“Good morning,” Kylo says, and pulls Hux down towards him as if he might be going back to sleep and he’s pulling a blanket over himself.

For lack of a better word, Hux is forced to wriggle out from Ren’s grasp, and he drops his feet to the ground, wincing at the cold of it. “What time is it,” he mutters, searching around for his uniform in the dark.

“Around five,” he’s informed boredly, “You still have another hour.”

Kylo looks at him while he steps into his trousers, seemingly fairly bemused. “Aren’t you going to shower first? You didn’t yesterday.”

And that freezes Hux up short.

He steps out of his trousers again and tries to find all the pieces of his uniform (his tunic is torn how did that happen) before once that’s done heading for the shower.

When he’s out of the shower, the lights are switched on but, oddly, Kylo is still in bed.

Hux glares.

“That expression really doesn’t suit you, General,” Kylo says without opening his eyes, and Hux stops glaring for a moment, and then glowers, remembering his intense dislike for force-sensitives like Ren. When he leaves, Ren is still lying on the bed, trying to get back to sleep.

As he leaves, the irritation and the sarcasm in his mind slowly start slipping away- slipping away until he’s left with a cold, hard pit in the bottom of his stomach. He remembers that brief sensation of contentment, of warmth, before he had woken completely, and remembers scrubbing away dried salt from his face in the shower. So all of that _had_ happened yesterday.

There’s a sinking feeling in his gut all throughout that day. Ren acts no differently in front of him- still cold words and bored responses- he acts no different for the rest of the week- and Hux is momentarily relieved before he wonders if that morning had just been a fluke, or if it was only that Ren acted like that when he was half-asleep.

There are fears gathering in him, but he cannot yet think of a way to name them.

 

 

* * *

**5.**

* * *

 

Eventually, it’s Kylo who first breaks that tenuous grasp on what should be and what can’t be and it is Kylo who first says, one time when they are both recovering from a particularly rough session of sex- “Your name,” suddenly, naturally, and Hux almost doesn’t register it for a moment, “What’s your first name.”

And Hux blinks, and asks, befuddled, “Why?”

And Kylo says, “I want to call you by it,” as if it might be the easiest thing that passes from his lips in whole the world.

“Oh.” Says Hux, and for a moment cannot say anything. And then he says, because it’s the truth, “I don’t use it.”

And Kylo’s gaze shutters a little at that- Hux can read the rejection from them plain as day, and suddenly his heart is stuttering and his mouth opening of its own accord.

“-but,” he says, without quite consciously meaning to, “I’d like to call you Kylo.”

He only realizes its true after he’s said it, and it’s already too late to unsay.

And Kylo’s eyes light up like the sun.

Maybe it’s that moment right there that Hux realizes he’s gone too far to go back, that he will never be able to go back from this, and yet he cannot bring himself to regret it.

And maybe realizing that is what lets him let go of the fears he has held all the way up until this point. He thinks on that for awhile.

“Armitage.” He mutters a few days later, looking anywhere but at Kylo and instead at his mug of ration coffee. It’s already lukewarm, getting colder by the second, the heat of it sinking into the air and then vanishing. His lips are suddenly very dry, and he quashes the urge to lick them.

“Armitage?”

“My name,” he explains, gaze still studiously fixated on the rim of his coffee cup. He ignores the shudder that might run through his spine at the way Kylo says his name- so carelessly, a little curiously, as if he might be able to call Hux that for years to come (and when did he start thinking about them in terms of time that ran for more than days)- as if Kylo might say that name to him, and he would be able to respond as if to anything else.

“You dislike it?” Kylo asks, eventually, and when Hux looks up he is in front of him, his eyes are kind and there is a cup of coffee in his hands- steaming hot, that he exchanges for Hux’s own.

He shakes his head, “It isn’t mine,” he says, quietly. He wonders if Kylo will understand, thinks that he might.

He doesn’t know why he hates that name so much, in truth. But he does. He does. He remembers boys with their jeering faces and cruel laughs, he remembers ice water and pieces of stone, things laughed off as jokes and jokes that he could never realize were funny.

(he remembers a cold face and cold eyes and a man who had never seen him except as a ghost left over from his lover)

He wants to say that if it’s you, if it’s _you_ , then it might become alright.

But Kylo looks at him, as if he understands all of that already, and he nods. And simple as that, it feels as if there’s a weight lifted from his shoulders.

And as if that was the first pebble to loosen and fall from the blockade, the rest of it follows.

“I never knew my mother,” he says one day, quietly, and even if his cup of alcohol is only half empty, he hopes Kylo understands what he means by the gesture. “She gave birth to me- I don’t know if she died giving birth to me, or if she just disappeared after that. My father never talked of her. There were no holovids, no pictures. She didn’t even give me a name. The only thing she gave me was this body, this face.”

His faint smirk is bitter, his words spilling out like truths in a confessional, “My father hated me, always. He thought me weak, a disappointment.”

A memory: _if this is the best you can do, I should never have taken you in._

He wonders what his father would think, if he knew his son has come this far.

“He used to tell me I had my mother’s face, a girl’s face. Even in the Academy- when I was first in everything, I trained the hardest out of anyone- he never said anything to me.”

He falls silent, the tips of his fingers twitching, and he presses them together, tries to still the tremble. He doesn’t know what he expects from that, really, doesn’t know what he expects Kylo to say- he blinks in surprise when Kylo’s hand touches his, stays there- his hand is warm, very warm, and Hux glances up, looks at Kylo.

The man smiles at him faintly, and when he speaks, his voice is measured, a little nostalgic. “My father was always away, as a child. Whenever he came back home I would always get gifts-”

It’s strange, but Kylo is a good storyteller- you wouldn’t expect it, since he doesn’t talk much at all otherwise- and Hux finds himself entranced in Kylo’s words, forgets about the cold reality around them for a moment listening to Kylo’s recollections of days spent building mock starfighters, trying to sneak into secret meetings and making their forts and bases from twigs and grass.

Such soft moments between them, quiet moments, like this, but they are not soft people by nature, and the harshness is in their blood, the urge to rip and tear and cut open- and yet it is in the softness all the same, the moments inbetween, that Hux falls in love.

 

 

* * *

**4.9.**

* * *

 

When he was young, he had been nothing. A bastard child, given nothing, destined for nothing. Even then, he had not believed in destiny.

He had nothing, but surely- surely that meant he had everything for the taking, that was what he thought. So if destiny indeed exists, then he has torn apart his completely- how far he has come from then, that weak boy without a future, and now he is a General, a commander of the armies of the First Order.

As a child he had never dreamed of this- had only dreamed of completion, of finding someone who might accept him, who might love him. And when that had failed, he had wanted recognition instead, wanted the taste of it on his tongue, the taste of respect and fear and dread in the air. Now he realizes he can have both- that he _does_ have both.

He dreams of leaving his mark on history- on leaving his mark on the galaxy, and know that his will be a end of glory and battle. He has no interest in dying old, in dying decrepit. He has not thought about it though, not really, for he is yet young and there is no thought of what comes at the end when the beginning has hardly begun.

"I have no need for destiny," Kylo tells him once, and it is a memory Hux holds with him forever, and Kylo is burning eyes and burning skin, his hands overwhelmingly hot as they grip Hux's hips. His words are running jagged with conviction, absolute in their certainty as he spills them from his lips with all the torment, all the ardour of a man who _believes_ , "-I have no need for it."

He does not think about it then, but something in those words shake Hux, even at that moment of thoughtlessness.

(something in those words is wrong, but he will never think of what)

Kylo pulls Hux closer, desperate for intimacy- always he is so, everything in him burning, pouring all that he has and all that he is into the moment- their lips meet rough and messy, not ever quite fitting, not even then- and Hux does not understand, not really, but the promise of his words sends a reverberation through him.

He fucks Hux into the sheets, thrusts into him until Hux loses all his control and cries out, the sounds that are muffled by the pillow drawn out into the room when a hand fists in his hair and tugs his head back, pulls at the roots until his neck is an arch in the air, and Kylo’s hair brushes his cheek when he leans down and lets his mouth find patches of clear flesh on Hux’s skin, leaves crescent shaped marks that will redden and bruise with the coming morning.

The pain is so utterly pleasurable, and the pleasure is so utterly _devastating_.

Afterwards, when they are spent and loose-limbed, Kylo smooths the hair from his forehead and holds him, legs tangled and breathing even. He tells it to Hux again, _I have no need for destiny_ , the darkness around them soft as a blanket, soft as a secret.

Yet his eyes blaze with all the conviction of a burning sun as he stares into Hux's pale blue gaze. It’s as if an oath, pledged to nothing more than that dark room and the man with red hair and a broken, beating heart held in Kylo’s hands, though he does not yet know it.

And Hux only needs to look at him, gaze into his eyes to believe.

 

 

* * *

**4.5.**

* * *

 

It’s funny, how much he realizes he’s found out about Kylo when he hasn’t even noticed it himself- there are things he’s picked up all this time, small things he does not think about consciously.

The man is a light sleeper for one- he wakes up early, does not need an alarm to help him get up, and Hux is equal parts envious and bitter for that fact.

Sometimes, just sometimes, he wakes up in the morning earlier than Kylo- very rarely, but it happens more than once. Whenever it does he never moves, for even shifting will make Kylo wake, but instead opens his eyes to gaze at the sleeping face of the man he thinks he might love.

Kylo always looks younger, when he’s asleep. The creases about his eyes fade, and his expression loosens into what might be something handsome. He never relaxes completely- Hux thinks the darkness never wholly leaves Kylo, not even in sleep, but even seeing him like this is a far cry from his usual demeanour.

Sometimes, he will wonder if Kylo will wake up, if he reaches out a hand and trails his fingers across the angle of a cheekbone, touch his lips and his cheek. He thinks that Kylo would wake up, so he never does it.

(once, he does, just out of curiousity, and then he regrets it because when he runs a thumb across the man’s lower lip he suddenly wants to kiss Kylo and then Kylo would certainly wake up- if he wasn’t awake already and simply playing along, of course)

(it turns out that he _is_ awake, and that particular situation devolves into morning sex)

 

 

* * *

**4.2.**

* * *

 

"I want- I want you-" he's begging, babbling, half-coherent and incoherent, fingers and perfectly manicured nails scrabbling at the frictionless sheets for purchase, "Please- please-"

There is an ache in his chest that wants, that needs to be filled, there's an ache that cannot be expressed, there's an emptiness that the heat barely reaches and he _needs_. _More_ , he begs, and Kylo dips his head into the crook of a neck and leaves crescent moons and bruises, leaves enough of himself there that it fills the emptiness within, leave enough of himself inside Hux that the next day his stiff collar will press against those marks, and the sensation of it will remind him of Kylo’s teeth and his lips and his tongue, and it will be a comfort to him.

 

 

* * *

**4.1.**

* * *

 

They go to a forest planet once- for negotiations except the negotiations fail quickly and they are forced to run instead, stealing a speeder that Kylo ditches halfway through. It’s how the Knight decides to take a vacation, and won’t take ‘no’ from Hux as an answer.

A vacation that consists, for the first part of it, walking, and then for the second part they end up in a small clearing with a spring. It’s in the middle of a forest with wild animals and things that could kill them in their sleep- and then Kylo convinces him to spend the next two days there.

Hux thinks it might have something to do with Kylo’s force-sensitivity, that animals all seem to stay away from that small clearing except when Kylo calls them to him. It's a neat trick to have, he admits, and Kylo waves him off, unoffended.

That is the coincidentally the exact point in time where Hux discovers that skewered rodents can actually taste good. He doesn't admit this one.

He also discovers that having nothing but each other’s company is, for lack of another word, quite pleasant- maybe it has to do with the stars in the sky, the soft breeze and the grass and the horizon and the expanse above that is a beautiful red in the daytime- but he thinks he will always remember those two days he spent there, all of it.

 

 

* * *

  **4.05.**

* * *

 

Kylo traces the letters down from Hux’s collarbone, touch feather light- and Hux can’t help it, the touch in itself makes him shudder, makes his gut twist, something low and heavy clenching and making his vision dizzy with want when Kylo doesn’t stop but continues down his body, the trail of it leaving lines of heat that don’t fade.

And well- he thinks, trying to think coherently and it’s hardly working- isn’t Kylo taking his sweet, sweet time.

Kylo only ever takes this long when either he’s feeling like prolonging what could be a nice and simple session of ‘lets have sex’, or otherwise when he’s in a particularly sadistic mood and wants to watch Hux squirm. Nevermind, it’s both.

“Can you hurry up?” He hisses eventually, lust roughening his voice and his cock leaking precum- but when he tries to drag Kylo down, his hands are instead caught and pinned to the bed.

He glares, this close to giving up and begging.

The smirk in Kylo's voice is almost _visible_ when he gets his reply, "No hurry. We have all night."

By that, Kylo probably (and actually) does mean all night.

Not only does he take his time on the first round, leaving Hux to whimper and whine and beg for it (not that he will admit that later)- but after Hux collapses on the sheets, exhausted, he gets barely minutes of rest before Kylo’s at it again. By the third time- and is Kylo _insatiable_?- Hux just gives up on ever getting up the next morning.

Their days repeat, each time different and all the more intimate.

At some point, he stops fearing Kylo will leave, he stops fearing for tomorrow, or the day after- stops going to sleep and hoping time might stop for them. At some point, he starts to believe that they will last forever (or that if they don’t- that these moments will last forever).

He thinks, even later than that- has long since known it when he first thinks of it, that he loves Kylo. And perhaps, more than anything else, he knows that Kylo loves him too.

 

 

* * *

**4.01.**

* * *

 

There is a whisper, soft and drowsy in the night. It is not said aloud. Not aloud where it can be heard.

(it is heard)

There is a secret, too. There is a secret that is called a secret, and a secret is that which must be hidden, a secret that can never be understood. It is a secret they will always keep.

In the light they are kept apart by cold words and cold distance- for the light keeps them at such odds to each other- not the light of day, not on a ship like this where there is only dark space and stars too far in the distance, too far to reach- not sunlight but the unblinking blue glow of monitors and hallway lights and the reflection in the white shells of stormtrooper helmets.

There is a secret and it starts like this: it is first in darkness (the true, inky black kind, where there is no chink in the door no window or candle and when the light is snuffed there is not even shadow)- that their secret is shared. It sneaks into the twilight, into the muffled light of monitors and hallway lights and the white beetle shells of stormtrooper helmets- the secret is a secret that they may as well share with anyone, for no-one knows because no-one sees.

-and the secret is of the kind that stays. The secret is of the kind that builds itself up in the nooks and crannies of mornings and evenings, that steals into soft touches and stuttering breaths, creeps into cold metal and sharp edges and softens them down from abrasion into jagged edges that twist and try to fit.

And it becomes so that the secret is no longer called a secret, and they do not fear to name it and to let it linger in corridors and hallways, linger in places where they might both see, leave it as an echo in places that will remain even after they are gone.

They are both so certain that their paths will be intertwined forever, and yet they don’t even know what the next day will bring for them. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because it's fine as it is- what matters tomorrow or the future, when the present can be devoured so fully.

_"I love you.” They say, and the words that hang in the air never leave._

_They love, and love is enough._

_No- that’s not it. They love, and love is enough to last them for eternity._

_But that’s- that’s not it either. They love, and love is enough to keep them together._

_(is it funny they dream the same dream)_

(they are men who have never believed in dreaming)

 

 

* * *

**4.**

* * *

 

Everything comes to an end.

Their end starts with a planet called Jakku.

 

 

* * *

**3.**

* * *

 

He touches the transparent glass of the meditank- it’s warm to the touch, almost jarringly so- and he gazes at its occupant within. Kylo is floating in a mixture of kolto and nutrients- the raw slash on his face is stark against his pale flesh, his wounds and bruises seemingly highlighted against his skin.

 _They destroyed Starkiller_. Hux starts at the voice in his head, his head snapping up to gaze at Kylo’s face- his eyes are closed, his face peaceful as if in sleep. And yet.

“... Yes,” he murmurs, and then, after a moment, repeats it in his thoughts. _They did_.

Kylo does not say anything to that- not an apology, not a murmur of regret, and for that Hux is grateful.

 _We’re rebuilding_ , he tells Kylo instead- hopes that Kylo is listening, _the Supreme Leader wishes to see you, once you are healed_.

He does not say that Snoke had said he would complete Kylo’s training when that time came- neither does he say that he had exaggerated the brunt of Kylo’s injuries in his report, to allow him more days to recover. He thinks Kylo already knows. There is no complaint at least, which relieves Hux.

After a moment of silence, Kylo says. _Han Solo. I killed him_.

Solo. There is a significance in that name, beyond that of a war hero in the Resistance. Hux just does not know what it is. “Who was he?”

A beat of silence. _My father._

And that is when Hux remembers the times Kylo had told him about his family, about his smuggler of a father, about how he had grown up with and without him, about the model ships he had painted in the colours of his father’s spaceship and- Hux thinks he understands, a little.

Hux does not reply, but Kylo seems to prefer that, and they drift into a companionable silence, tendrils of soft thought and sensation from Kylo intertwining with his mind, until they are perhaps joined wholly.

He does not know how long he stays there, simply standing with his hand laying on the warm glass of the medical tank, until a report beeps on his holopad and Kylo sends across a curl of soft and familiar warmth to let him know he can leave.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promises, and when the door slides shut behind him, there is still a gentle remnant of Kylo in his mind, lingering with him in the corridors, quiet and sentient and in the coldness of the hallways and chambers of the Finalizer, Hux is kept warm by it. He keeps his promise, returns almost every day, until Kylo is healed and instead he can touch the man and feel the blood running underneath his hands.

But there is still a question in his mind- quiet at first, less than background noise, but eventually it slips to the forefront and loosens his lips one day, when they are lying together and Hux is staring at the dark ceiling above.

"Who was that girl?" He asks, gaze searching out the imperfections- barely visible- on the wall above. He does not know why he asks in truth- he thinks he already knows the answer, and yet he needs to hear it from Kylo’s lips all the same.

(he had looked at the recordings afterwards on the Finalizer, the recordings and the holovids, Kylo as he had tried to take the information from the girl’s mind- he had heard everything, if only through the metallic render of the capture device)

Black eyes find his, and Hux licks his lips, his resolution suddenly losing its grasp. He wonders if Kylo can see the wordless question in his eyes, see the guess that has already been made, because the man pulls him close, tugs him to his body and buries his nose in Hux’s messed hair. It's unnecessary, too affectionate, and Hux wonders if he should struggle or push the man away. He wonders if it's fine to just stay like this.

“Who was she?” He asks again, defeated, his voice muffled as he speaks into the soft material of Kylo’s robe.

“No one,” Kylo murmurs, and Hux sighs.

“Fine,” he mutters, relents, and lets Kylo kiss him.

 

 

* * *

**2.**

* * *

 

He sees her again, Hux knows, and tries to think less of it than he does. He knows because the Supreme Leader sends him on missions, and when he returns, it is only in mission reports that he sees that the two have met- a Jedi trainee, a former scavenger. _Rey._

Kylo too, grows distant- the more Hux tries, the more closed Kylo becomes, and he does not understand.

He thinks he does understand though- he thinks he does, and he hates himself for it. He hopes, thinks, prays, that it will not last, that Kylo will return to how he was before. He waits, and yet Kylo’s gaze only grows all the more distant, looks towards the stars and then starts looking beyond, looking for something that Hux would never be able to see.

But once- just. Just once. When Kylo turns his gaze away from the stars beyond to gaze at Hux, and he says, slow and careless and words so soft they might break in the air- “Do you think we could leave this, if we wanted to?”

And Hux- Hux does not understand for a moment, is confused and bewildered (is afraid, but it is a fear that will not name itself). But he has the sudden feeling that if he replies with something wrong here, then he won’t be able to salvage it ever again. And yet, he thinks he cannot hesitate either, that Kylo would see that too.

“Where would we go?” He asks instead, hopes that it is not the incorrect answer, and wonders what it is that makes his own voice falter when he says it.

But… here is the thing. He thinks about it. Where _would_ they go?

A long time ago, he would not have thought about this at all, would have known that everything he had was what the First Order, the Empire had offered him, given him, that he was a product of its machine and he would not comprehend anything else outside of it- and yet, now. Kylo speaks those words, and Hux thinks that he might follow Kylo anywhere, would cut himself away from everything he was and still have himself left- if only the man would ask.

And Kylo opens his mouth, something deep and unreadable in his eyes and it is like he wants to say something, like he wants to say everything- and yet after a moment he seems to catch himself, and whatever he had been about to say is already gone when he speaks next.

“Who knows,” he smiles faintly, and the answer is wrong, all wrong, but Hux does not know how, “It’s just a thought.” But his eyes are troubled, and when he embraces Hux it feel as if Kylo is only half there- as if some of him is already gone somewhere else, somewhere Hux can’t reach.

(and the doubt only comes later- the doubt as to Kylo’s question, to his own doubts- of _course_ he would not contemplate anything like leaving, his duty matters more to him than anything else, serving the First Order will always be the most important-- and yet in that moment, he had known he would be able to do anything, would be able go anywhere and be anyone if only Kylo asked it of him- and whether or not it would end up being the truth, well, it was already too late to find out)

“Who is she?” He asks again that night, words soft and troubled, and when Kylo does not react at all for a moment, he reaches out a hand, grabs Kylo’s wrist and pulls him over to face Hux- he wonders if Kylo can see the desperation now in his eyes, the nameless fear, because the man smirks (it’s a strange expression, half closed, half terribly sad), and pulls him into a warm embrace.

“No-one,” the reply comes, soft and soothing, and Hux hates that answer. He hates it. It’s a repetition, each step playing out the same notes, and yet it feels as if many things have changed in it, that the melody is completely different.

And yet he relaxes despite himself, melts into the embrace and closes his eyes- he can’t help doing so, even if within the fear curls, coils down and lies down as if to stay.

“Go to sleep,” Kylo tells him, sends a wash of calm and warmth over him that Hux is too tired to combat, and Hux, unwillingly, sleeps.

Then, when he dreams, he dreams of nightmares, of darkness closing in and cages trapping him in places too small and dark. And after that, a wash of calm, stilling everything else and drawing him into oblivion.

 

 

* * *

**1.**

* * *

 

When he realizes it- when he realizes what’s happening, it’s already too late. Perhaps it was too late from the beginning. Perhaps he is a fool, only to understand all of this when Kylo is already no longer his.

(perhaps he understood from the beginning, but had not yet admitted it to himself)

He doesn’t know how it happened, how the faint distance turned into what feels like a chasm that widens by the day.

 _You're slipping away from me_ , he wants to say, the worry- the fear coming from some corner of his mind (from all of it, from all of it), _please, Kylo_. _Please._ He wonders if Kylo would listen, would hear, if he said that. He wants, somehow, in any way and every way, to grasp hold of Kylo and hold the man to himself, to hold tight enough that he would never be able to break away.

And then he wonders, alarmed and suddenly cold, all of the emotion stealing away from him- _why do I feel like this._

So in the end. In the end this is it. This is what his foolishness has brought upon him, the cold torture that he has fashioned for himself from soft words and soft warmth and--

Is this the price he must pay, for that foolishness?

And then, knowing his feelings- knowing them all- he does nothing.

He cares, he knows he cares, that is why he will not let himself do anything. He does nothing, and so he watches Kylo fall away from him.

 _But that. That isn’t true, is it?_ He realizes, at some point during it all, that Kylo is his weakness. Doing nothing is the right thing to do- letting Kylo detach himself from Hux is the right thing to do. He should rid himself of the weakness, that is what he tells himself.

He cares, he knows he cares, that is why he will not let himself do anything.

Except. That isn’t true at all.

Even if he tells himself that, even if he tells himself everything, all the solutions and reasons and logic in the world- whenever Kylo touches him, whenever he even looks at Hux, Hux forgets anything else. He forgets all of it for a moment that might as well last eternity- and then when Kylo is gone- well, then he regrets.

But it happens, and it seems to happen every time. Every time Kylo touches him, every time Kylo speaks to him- he loses himself, lets Kylo have all the parts of himself that he should not give, gives Kylo all the parts of himself that are so easily broken, tries so hard to salvage what he can, what he cannot.

(he wonders which one of him is the truth, the part of him that regrets, or the part of him that forgets regret when he is with Kylo, the part of him that takes anything and everything he can and holds on as tight as he can to the remnants of what remains afterwards)

Kylo is gone on a mission for weeks- he goes MIA at one point, and Hux’s heartbeat stutters in his chest, cold and afraid- but he returns, he returns, and Hux does not know why he worried. Kylo is invincible, after all- the greatest weapon the First Order held, it’s impossible for him to go missing, and yet Hux is relieved anyway.

It is days before he holds Kylo next, too many politicians to talk with, too many things to schedule and do and people to meet- they are days that feel longer than weeks, and when he does finally see Kylo, it is the man himself who comes to his quarters in the dark of the night, Kylo who makes love to him on his bed, kisses him softly and sweet- Hux is hard, achingly hard from having had nothing but his own hand all this time, but when he growls wordlessly at Kylo, pleads with him to go faster or be rougher, the man only smiles at him before dipping his head down, claiming Hux’s lips to silence him with a gentleness than makes his heart twist and the heat in his belly grow.

He doesn’t know how long Kylo leaves him there at the edge, tastes every inch of his body with his tongue and with his lips, fucks him languid and slow until finally, finally he lets Hux come, and by then Hux is a trembling, drawn-out mess, eyes fluttering shut and exhausted enough to fall into sleep immediately. When Kylo makes to leave the bed, he doesn’t even realize that he’s reached out and grabbed the man’s wrist before he can sit up.

Suddenly, he's far more awake than he had been moments earlier. He stares at Kylo, wonders if the man is going to leave, wonders how far his abject denial at the idea is projecting.

Kylo blinks at him (for a moment there’s an emotion that flashes through his eyes, dark and unreadable, and Hux is too exhausted to see through it to its meaning), before the man’s lips quirk into a faint smile, surrendering and lying back down with Hux.

“I was just going to get a cloth and clean you up,” he says sounding amused, and Hux doesn’t say anything at all and and draws Kylo tighter in anyway, holds the man to him. He doesn’t know what is so strange with him today, what is making him act so unlike himself, but there is a feeling in him- a strange, wild feeling, that this might be his final chance to do anything like this.

His hands tighten in the folds of Kylo’s clothing, he is comforted by the familiarity, the warmth of arms around his back, and he stays awake for endless seconds listening to the beat of Kylo’s heart, and then when he cannot stay awake any longer he falls asleep to it.

His last conscious thought, before he succumbs to the warmth, is to hope this moment might last forever.

When he wakes, Kylo is already gone.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

**.**

* * *

 

She offers him her hand, wavering- he can see how it sways, buffeted by the soft winds, but somehow it is firm, the motion utterly sure.

He is at a loss for it, at a loss for words, for what to do- to say- for anything. He stands there, in front of her, and the universe stands still with the hitch of his breath.

Can he be redeemed? He does not know. But she- she seems to believe, or if she doesn't, she doesn't seem to care.

He realizes, unable to escape it, that the inexorable pull is on him again, at his limbs, at his heart. He understands now. After all this time he understands that this- _this_ is what they mean by fate. He looks into her gaze, the brown orbs blazing with **light** , and he sees with his eyes a chance of salvation, if only he would take it.

(the darkness still drags on his limbs)

(he breathes, and the air in his lungs is tainted with the dark, the mountain wind on his lips does not wash away the wine and the blood and he wonders, blankly, how this girl thinks he can be redeemed)

(he does not doubt this girl will let him be redeemed)

He is not foolish enough to think she can give salvation to him- he does not even know what that is, but what she offers to him now is a chance to obtain it for himself.

A thought, then, too brief to be catalogued, too brief to be thought- ginger hair and green eyes and skin stretched over bone- there for less than an instant and it is gone, replaced by the image of _her_ , a reality of flesh and blood before his eyes.

( _I have no need of destiny_.)

(is it destiny then, when this is something he chooses. or perhaps it is fate after all that this would happen- fate even though he sees it with his own eyes blossoming down countless paths (destiny has always been a _choice_ )- but whatever it is, he-)

He is torn, he is far from certain- something in him is screaming (something in him is screaming in a voice that sounds too much like a man he once knew)- and yet even at the same time something in him is blossoming with relief, with hope, soft and loud and staggering in the weight it lifts from him. There are possibilities, endless branches of them that might stem from this moment- more than he can count, more than he can see or feel or know.

But this is the here, this is the now- she offers him her hand, and he takes it.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
